guidelines on stakeholder engagement - cooperative islands

Resource Kit for Rodent and Cat Eradication

Guidelines on Stakeholder Engagement Version 1.0.6 of 12

GUIDELINES ON

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

PURPOSE ............................................................................................................................................................... 2

1. WHAT IS A STAKEHOLDER? ............................................................................................................................ 2

2. TYPES OF STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT ......................................................................................................... 3

3. BENEFITS OF STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT ................................................................................................... 3

4. THE CONSULTATION PROCESS ........................................................................................................................ 4

4.1 FAMILIARIZE ............................................................................................................................................................. 4

4.2 IDENTIFY ................................................................................................................................................................. 5

4.3 PLAN ...................................................................................................................................................................... 6

4.3.1 Principles of Consultation ............................................................................................................................. 6

4.3.2 Planning the Consultation ............................................................................................................................. 7

4.4 METHOD ................................................................................................................................................................. 8

4.5 CONSULT ................................................................................................................................................................. 9

4.6 MONITOR.............................................................................................................................................................. 10

5. ENGAGEMENT THROUGHOUT THE ERADICATION PROCESS ......................................................................... 10

5.1 PROJECT SELECTION ........................................................................................................................................... 10

5.2 FEASIBILITY STUDY ............................................................................................................................................. 11

5.3 PROJECT DESIGN ................................................................................................................................................ 11

5.4 OPERATIONAL PLANNING .................................................................................................................................. 11

5.5 IMPLEMENTATION ............................................................................................................................................. 11

5.6 SUSTAINING THE PROJECT ................................................................................................................................. 11



PURPOSE

These Guidelines are to be used by Project Managers conducting eradication projects based on the PII

Resource Kit for Rodent and Cat Eradication.

The Guidelines describe how project managers should involve stakeholders in the eradication project.

1. WHAT IS A STAKEHOLDER?

A stakeholder is any person, group or organization who contributes to, is affected, positively or negatively, by

the project.

Examples of stakeholders:

o Communities living on the island or using the island for food and resources.

o Island visitors, e.g. tourists, fisherman, research scientists.

o Island land owners.

o Implementing agencies.

o Technical assistance providers.

o Funders.

o Government departments.

o Local government/administration departments.

Figure: Some Key Stakeholder Types



2. TYPES OF STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

There are many different ways you will interact with stakeholders at various stages of the project. There are

three different ways the project can involve stakeholders in the project depending on why you are talking to

the stakeholders.

1) INFORMING – You will inform stakeholders about the project. You will tell them useful bits of information.

This is a one-way communication where people outside of the project team are learning details of the

project. Examples include:

o Reporting to funders on the progress of the project.

o Explaining to residents of an island the operational plan, how they will be affected and what they

need to do.

o Making completed project documents (e.g. Feasibility Study Report, Project Plan) available for

public reading.

2) CONSULTING – You will consult with stakeholders. This is a two-way discussion where you will give the

stakeholders the opportunity to contribute ideas, suggestions and opinions in the planning and decision

making parts of the project. Much of the consultation will be with the community as they are the most

affected group.

3) PARTICIPATING – Some stakeholders will participate in the project work. Community groups, island

visitors and other stakeholders can all make a direct contribution to the eradication project effort. For

example, local residents often make up part of the eradication operation team and you will hope to enlist

as many island visitors as possible to undertake Biosecurity – prevention measures.

3. BENEFITS OF STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

Manage expectations by ensuring that communities fully understand the nature of the project, and the likely

impacts and benefits that may be derived from the project.

Promote community confidence in project management by ensuring open and transparent discussion of

project development processes, technical studies, impacts and risk management processes. Collaborate with

stakeholders considering all stakeholder input.

To ensure operational efficiency and continuity within a supportive local community environment, not only for

existing operations but also to build capacity and understanding to undertake future projects.

To ensure sustainable project design and decision-making by incorporating local community knowledge, views

and concerns in technical studies, project design and decision making.

To enable the administering agency to recognise and address community concern early.



4. THE CONSULTATION PROCESS

6 Step process in effective consultation

4.1 FAMILIARIZE

Getting to know your community stakeholders.

Community issues need to be identified – how might the project affect them?

Community stakeholders need to be mapped – Who are the key groups/individuals?

Culture of community needs to be understood – What social and cultural values need to be considered and

respected?

All of these can influence:

o Acceptance of and support for the project.

o Ownership of the project.

o Involvement in the project.



o Success of the project.

o The development of the project timeline.

4.2 IDENTIFY

Identifying the community stakeholders and identifying any issues.

Developing a list of individuals and/or groups is a simple graphic way of identifying who they are and how they

might be affected. It’s useful because:

o It provides you with an instant picture to scope how you might undertake consultation, how much

lead in time is required and what resources you may need.

o It also enables you to identify those with different levels of interest, capacities, and relevance to the

project.

o It enables you to keep track of how and when consultation takes place and whether issues are

satisfactorily dealt with or not.

This way you can develop targeted consultation approaches. For instance, how you deal with a local village on

the island may be completely different to how you deal with the owner of a tourist resort that takes people to

the island.

Often two distinct stakeholder groups can be identified:

o Primary Stakeholders – people who are directly impacted by the project, e.g. those who live on or

use the island and funders.

o Secondary Stakeholders – individuals or groups with an interest in the project that not directly

impacted but nonetheless have a legitimate interest in or connection to the project, e.g. the captain

and crew of a supply ship that regularly visits the island.

Within these groups, there are often stakeholders that are:

o Specific issue related – people and groups that only have a concrete "stake" in a specific issue, e.g.

Customs officials involved with quarantine at a servicing port.

o Affected by a range of issues – groups or individuals that might be concerned with the total project,

e.g. a village on the island.

There are a number of ways you can identify who your stakeholders are. The agency you work for may already

have knowledge about who these people are likely to be as a result of doing other projects, you may have

good contacts in the community yourself who can help you or you may have a person identified who knows

the community well and can do this work.



Useful questions to ask when identifying stakeholders:

o Who owns the island?

o Who uses the island and how?

o Who lives on the island?

o Who lives on/owns neighbouring islands?

o Is the island serviced by cargo ships, ferries?

o Is the island used as a destination for tourists (include charter boats and private boats here)

As you are developing your list of stakeholders, you also need to record:

o Name of the contact person or group

o The best means of contacting them

o Any social protocols/customs that need to be observed

o What is their interest in the project

o What key issues are they interested in/how would they like to be involved

o How will you/did you deal with any issues

o Dates of when people were contacted and by whom

4.3 PLAN

Planning community consultation.

4.3.1 PRINCIPLES OF CONSULTATION

Consultation programs will vary from project to project and community to community but they will all share

certain basic principles.

Understand the community and social structure of the villages you work with.

Show respect for customs and social protocols.

Communicate clearly and at the right time.

Provide full and transparent information promptly.

Encourage fair and informed discussion.



Encourage active involvement in the project right from the start.

Respond promptly to information requests, complaints and concerns.

Establish clear timelines and lines of communication.

Be open minded when discussing difficult issues and problems.

Provide information in plain language.

Give practical help to people and groups to take part in the consultation process.

Make consultation and communication accessible to all.

Provide feedback to communities on regular basis.

Allow consultation to be effective – have an impact on the decision making process.

Be open to changes in the project planning if the need arises – both from a community perspective or from

the perspective of your agency.

Evaluate the effectiveness of the consultation program adopted.

4.3.2 PLANNING THE CONSULTATION

Successful community consultation starts at the beginning: project ideas in the Project Selection Stage should

be a result of community consultation and continues through the life of the project.

Good planning is vital for an effective community consultation process.

Consultation is a two way process. Communities are more inclined to receive and consider information if they

feel they have the capacity to have an input to the decision making process – just providing information

regardless of how well presented is only a first step to effective consultation. The consultation process should

provide a pathway for information to flow from the implementing agency to the community and vice-versa.

Involving the community effectively requires understanding your community and what makes its work. It also

involves being able to match different techniques of communicating with various levels and types of

consultation needs. Do not expect that you will be able to consult and involve everyone in the same way.

Some communities are more receptive than others and will require different approaches – be flexible and

seek advice if required. For example in a village chiefs and senior village members may be the decision makers,

other people in the village may not be able to talk to you directly, they may need to go through more senior

spokespeople.

Not understanding and working within social or cultural codes of conduct increases the risk that you may not

be able to engage the community and they may not want to be involved in the project. Offence is easily taken



when people do not observe correct customs or social protocols even if you do this unknowingly. Small

mistakes like this can often cost the support and trust of the community. Don’t let it happen.

Effective consultation takes time. Implementing agencies must build community consultation into their

timelines right from the Project Selection Stage.

Projects that proceed before good community consultation programs are in place are likely to experience

delays at later stages as a direct result of too little time spent on the community consultation program.

Initiating consultation when you are half way through a project does not demonstrate commitment to true

partnerships. Partnerships involve working together and consulting regularly throughout the whole life of the

project.

4.4 METHOD

Choosing the most appropriate communication methods

Now that you have a good idea of who your stakeholders are you need to be able to work out which forms of

communication are best suited to each group.

Use people with social standing in the community or experience and respect from the communities you need

to work in to help you. Face to face communication is often hard to beat but you need to know what

information to present to who, in what form and when. For example your first meeting in a village may be

with a chief and simply be introductions and finding out what sort of information they would like on the

project. Would they like you to come back and talk to a village meeting, or would they prefer you gave them

key information and they talk to the community first.

As you develop relationships, respect and trust with your stakeholders the methods of consultation you use

may change. Where initially you provided information to a village elder, in time you may be able to take

information to village meetings yourself and get people actively involved in the project.

Examples of communication methods:

o Identify key spokespeople in the community and work directly with them

o Arrange visits to other projects that have been completed so people can see what can be achieved

o Arrange visits to the project island with people from other islands where these projects have been

done (often meeting people who are from another village is far more effective than you

communicating information).

o Develop relationships with local schools, churches and community projects.

o Regular meetings and visits to update on project progress, community issues etc.

o Jargon free information sheets and newsletter.



o Public meetings.

o Demonstration projects.

o Involvement in decision making.

o Training of local people to undertake tasks such as monitoring, hand baiting, biosecurity.

o Posters on key aspects, e.g. why is biosecurity important, how to detect sign of an invasive species.

o Clear concise information sheets on key aspects of the project.

o Make presentations to community and special interest groups.

o Have project open days throughout the life of the project.

o Build relationships with local media and keep them informed with accurate information.

o Individual discussion with stakeholders.

o Identify a key contact person within your agency for people to contact.

o Establish an advisory group of key stakeholders.

These methods can all be of value, however not all methods will work in all situations – you need to have a

good understating of stakeholder groups and their sensitivity to the project and choose communication

methods accordingly.

4.5 CONSULT

Implementing the consultation plan.

Stick to the plan you have agreed on. Steps 1-4 have resulted in a plan that is based on good knowledge of

your stakeholders and how best to communicate with and involve them. Effective consultation requires

genuine commitment from the person responsible for the consultation programme. They need to have good

interpersonal skills and be a listener as well as a good communicator of information. They also need to be able

to communicate what they learn back to the project team and take back any additional information that is

needed by the stakeholders.

Managing and identifying issues and problems. One of the key measures of the success of an effective

community consultation programme is how the community reacts if things go wrong. Projects have risks – it is

likely at some stage that an event will cause community concern so it’s important that as part of your

relationship building that you have no secrets and inform people about the risks and how you will manage

them.



Involving your stakeholders early on and regularly throughout the life of the project demonstrates respect for

them and builds trust and confidence. This in turn means that when issues, risks and problems are identified

there is a greater chance that as a group you can sit down and work out mutual agreeable solutions.

4.6 MONITOR

Monitoring how effective the consultation was.

It’s always a good idea to review how effective your consultation is or was. You should do this during the

project as well as when it’s completed. It’s particularly useful because its helps you refine your techniques for

when the next project comes along.

Regular communication with the community will identify how successful the consultation programme is. If

issues can be resolved by consultation and collaboration – your programme is successful. If issues are

escalating and resolving them is proving difficult you need to consider how you can improve your consultation

systems. With constant review this situation should not occur – if it does, it is too late and a new approach is

needed. Do not ignore signs of discontent no matter how small they might be – they have a habit of growing.

Consider the following questions:

o Have I correctly identified and included all community stakeholders?

o Is the information that was provided what people wanted?

o Did the forms in which information was provided meet the needs of the stakeholders?

o Were any issues, problems and risks that were identified dealt with promptly and properly?

o Were there any issues, problems and risks that affected the project and why?

o How could the above have been avoided?

o What feedback did stakeholders provide about the level and type of consultation?

o Are there any improvements that could be made next time a similar project is undertaken?

5. ENGAGEMENT THROUGHOUT THE ERADICATION PROCESS

Key Stakeholder engagement in the different Stages

5.1 PROJECT SELECTION

Consult with community groups and funders when developing project ideas.



Inform stakeholders that were involved in the consultation of the outcome of the Project Selection Stage.

5.2 FEASIBILITY STUDY

Consult with community and landowners when planning the Feasibility Study Visit.

Consult with the community on the Feasibility Study Report.

Consult with all island visitors on the island on Biosecurity Plan.

Inform stakeholders of the outcomes of the Feasibility Study Report.

5.3 PROJECT DESIGN

Consult during the preparation of the Project Plan.

Agree with participating stakeholders, which groups or organizations are responsible for completing

which parts of the project.

Agree with funders and participating organizations, how progress of the project will be reported to the

different stakeholder groups.

Inform stakeholders of the final Project Plan.

5.4 OPERATIONAL PLANNING

Consult on the preparation of the Operational Plan.

Consult on the preparation of the Biosecurity Plan.

Inform stakeholders of the Operational Plan.

Inform communities and island visitors of the details and timing of the eradication operation and any

actions they need to take before, during and after the operation.

5.5 IMPLEMENTATION

Inform the community that the eradication operation is underway.

Stakeholders may participate in the eradication operation.

Stakeholders will participate in the biosecurity – prevention measures.

Inform stakeholders of the Operational Review.

5.6 SUSTAINING THE PROJECT



Stakeholders will participate in the biosecurity – prevention measures

Inform stakeholders of project progress.

guidelines on stakeholder engagement - cooperative islands

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